


the skin that crawls from you

by vanasha



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Beauty and the Beast Fusion, Alternate Universe - Fairy Tale, Beauty and the Beast Elements, Body Image, F/F, First Crush, First Love, Human/Monster Romance, Junkenstein's Revenge, Kidnapping, Touch-Starved, basically this is a different version of batb, but without magic or the staff of the castle, fast slow burn, god I have a thing for undead ladies huh, mentions of abuse, mentions of body horror, mentions of forced marriage, mentions of gore, with Sombra as the Beast and the Reader as Belle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 00:14:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22006771
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vanasha/pseuds/vanasha
Summary: In the beginning there is a man.Mumbling about a rose under his breath, damning the snow, the cold and the thorns.*The Bride asks for the Girl to stay in her father's place without thinking.She had never imagined her to say Yes.
Relationships: Bride Sombra/Reader, Sombra | Olivia Colomar/Reader
Comments: 20
Kudos: 69





	the skin that crawls from you

**Author's Note:**

> Okay. Let's all just collectively imagine it's October, preferably October 2018 because that's when this Sombra skin came out and I lost my entire goddamn mind over it. And then let's just take it from here.

*

In the beginning there is a man.

(There had also been a man the moment she was born. Calling himself her _father_ , calling himself human no matter what inhuman things he undertakes, no matter how inhumanly he treats her.)

But this one now is wandering through her gardens.

Mumbling about a rose under his breath, damning the snow, the cold and the thorns.

He keeps getting caught in the thorns of the bushes of the estate, checking the stems for flowers. Leaving behind the ones that look like they had suffered under the weather, seemingly looking for one that's still whole, still untouched.

He is moving hurried in the cold, loud like a wounded animal.

She hadn't even noticed how lost in her thoughts she must have been until she flinches, surprised by the noises right behind her.

It only takes her a second to take the scene in front of her in. It takes her even less time to react to it.

Her movements are jagged, sudden, utterly ungraceful (father would hate that), but they're a lot faster than his.

He only has to take one look at her face, her figure, her scars to start moving back more frantically. To get even more stuck in the thorns that pierce his cloak, his sleeves and his skin. He doesn't mind the scratches, doesn't mind the roses, his task that had led him here, now that he has seen who he has seen, _what_ he has seen.

He nearly skips on the melting snow under his feet. Keeps spilling excuses about only wanting a single rose, how he had never meant to intrude on her nor this place, that he hadn't known of someone living here, but the Bride can hardly understand him, his words drowned out by the blood running through her ears.

Her eyes are focused on him, her body shaking. Reacting before she can think anything through.

(There had been a man once. Calling himself a _man_ , calling himself her _husband_. Claiming that he never wanted to intrude on her either, but also telling her that he had every right to do so.)

Now she grabs his shirt by the collar, hard enough that even she can hear a ripping sound. She pays no mind to the thorns that are tearing her own sleeves, into her skin. She can't even feel it as she pulls him close to her, never minding his cries, his weak attempts to scratch or punch her. She sees his face but she really doesn't. They all look the same.

A sound forces itself out of her throat, something close to a laugh, when she sees the fear in his eyes, in his face. She bashes his head against the dirty snow-covered tiles of the garden path until he finally stops moving.

Distantly she hears the cry of an animal, and out of the corner of her eye she sees a riderless horse dash out of the garden, seemingly panicked by the sickening crunch of bone against stone.

She doesn't move.

She doesn't move for a very long time.

*

When she finally does again there is a thin layer of snow covering her and the body of the man. The snow had turned red where it touched his head.

She tilts her own head to the side. It was a strangely calming sight.

If there is one thing that the Bride cannot let happen, not ever again, it is to have a man close to her.

(He had called himself her betrothed, called himself a man, but she knew he was no man at all. Told her she belonged to him, had been _made_ for him.

Her father never contradicted his words.

So what did that make of her?)

*

The man is still alive.

And loud.

His cries echo through the walls of the dungeon. Or through whatever you wanted to call the desolate and cold rooms in the basement, where it partly snowed or rained in through the crumbling stone walls. They weren't destroyed enough to escape through them but enough to make it uncomfortable.

Compared to the places she had already found shelter in her past, they were downright luxurious.

He cries for his daughter, more often than not. That he was needed, that she'd worry. That his wound could get infected, and he'd die, leaving his daughter help- and defenceless.

That he had only wanted a single rose as a gift for her, having no idea about whose place this was, having it thought abandoned.

The Bride tries to drown him out.

Thinks of literally drowning him in the half-frozen lake in the garden more than once.

She suspects that he only wants her to pity him so that she lets him leave.

Sadly enough, it was working.

She isn't sure what to do. She remembers all too clearly how her own father treated her, and the entire concept of a father caring for his child was as foreign to her as a walk through town.

But she doesn't want to kill the man. Yet she certainly also doesn't want him to stay here.

What if someone comes looking for him? What if someone had noticed the horse running out of the forest? It had been stupid of her not to hunt it down once she gained her senses back but there was no changing that.

She can't let him go. If she does, there is no way of making sure he wouldn't come back. He found his way to this estate once, he could do it again.

Only then with more men.

The image alone is something she can not bear.

So she closes and locks the door to the basement.

Looks out of the window of the dining room at the roses blooming despite the cold.

***1**

There is a knock on the main door.

The Bride stands absolutely still.

There had never been a knock on the main door before. Not on any door.

She has no idea how to react. For a split-second she catches herself of thinking to just _open the door_ , simply out of surprise.

She does not.

When she hears a sound, a creak, following the knock she can't stop a muttered curse escaping her.

The main door wasn't locked.

*

There is a G _irl_.

The Bride can't take her eyes off her. The way she moves, the way she looks. The way she has been inside the house for merely a second and yet fit more into it than the Bride ever had, looking so very human human and pretty.

A Girl. Walking through her home.

Curiously looking around, touching the heavy and expensive looking curtains, the wallpapers, before seemingly recalling the reason of her visit, calling out for a man, calling out for her _father._

The Bride, knowing her way through the castle without being seen or heard, always one step behind her, freezes.

*

The Girl follows the cries of the man, holds his hands through the little cross-barred window in the door, the only locked door in the entire house. The Bride doesn't understand what she was doing at first but then it clicks. The Girl tries to warm the cold hands of her father through the bars.

The Bride blinks and looks at her own hands. Until she _hears_ them.

They're crying.

They're laughing.

Both seemingly overjoyed.

The Bride tilts her head.

She can't remember a time when her father had ever held her.

When she had wanted to be held by him, after she found out what those hands had done (to him, to her).

Can't remember a time when he had ever cried with her. Laughed with her.

 _Talked_ to her, treated like someone worth talking to.

Looked at her without disgust.

She can't imagine it. Can't imagine wanting him back, going out of her way looking for him.

The Bride looks at the father and daughter in front of her now and she feels cold.

*

Their faces change when she decides she has seen enough and makes herself noticeable.

The Bride could have laughed because of course they do. They always do.

She doesn't laugh.

*

She asks for the Girl to stay in her father's place without thinking.

*

She had never imagined her to say Yes.

Had never imagined that someone would ever trade their life for another.

*

The father tries to fight, certainly cries out even louder than before but he's even weaker than before and by now the Bride is good at tuning him out.

She knows how she looks, she knows this is enough to get them to run away screaming but in the end she thinks it were the reassurances from his child and not her threats that finally get him to use his last bit of strength to crawl up onto the horse and out of her sight.

They're both crying and it makes the Bride feel sick.

***3**

The Girl doesn't leave the room for the first two days.

The Bride knows because she never let the door out of sight.

*

She doesn't think of moving the her into a more comfortable room until the third day.

***4**

Hunger finally drives the Girl out.

The Bride knows the feeling intimately.

***7**

Somehow the Bride feels even more alone now that there was someone with her in the castle that avoids her by all means.

She sees the Girl during dinner. Dinner meaning whenever she spots her hurriedly eating whatever she can find in the kitchen by pure accident. On the Girl's part.

Even then no words are spoken. The Girl leaves the room as soon as possible.

***9**

The Bride feels like she's back at her father's place. With nobody looking at her, until they had to. Nobody talking to her, until they _explicitly_ had to.

And when they did, it was clear that it made everyone uncomfortable.

(Her betrothed did look, did talk, but the Bride wished that he didn't.)

***14**

Four times. That is how often the Girl had tried to escape so far.

(The Bride felt a weird sense of pride every time. It had taken herself longer to gather her courage and try to run away from her _family_. And even then she had made far stupider attempts.)

It's just the Girl's luck that the Bride is a hunter.

She can outrun a wolf without breaking a sweat. She can catch her in no time.

*

She hunts rabbits when she goes out to enjoy herself.

Less meat on them, of course, but there's nothing more that gets the heart inside her beating faster than following the animal in sharp turns. Cornering it when it least expects it. Breaking its neck with her teeth alone before it knows what's happening.

She never takes her time with the kill.

She's a lot of things. Cruel isn't one of them.

But she's _alive_ during the hunt.

She feels the blood run down her chin, dripping onto her dress, staining what's left of the white.

She's not sure exactly why this is so satisfying to her, if it's about seeing the colour of the dress and all its indirect dowry turn redder and redder, leaving nothing behind but what she chose there to be. If it's about the feeling of the wind on the skin she wears, the little cuts from branches and thorns, the rush that is freedom.

Everything she is, everything she has isn't hers, nothing ever was, but the air in the lungs that are inside her after taking something for herself? That one's on her and her alone.

She bites into the rabbit, gulps its meat down raw.

Hunched in the woods, on hands and knees, leaving nothing else behind but bones.

Here, like that the bride feels like a wild animal herself.

She feels like she _belongs_.

*****

Hunting became different with the Girl.

Everything did, but leaving her in the estate alone can be tricky. So can be the Bride coming back.

The first time the Bride returns, blood dripping down her dress, twigs in dishevelled dark hair, hands all red and lips twisted into a wild smile, the Girl lets out a gasp.

It is the loudest sound the Bride heard from her in days.

The Girl hides her mouth behind her hands and cowers against the wall, never taking her eyes off her.

The Bride knows fear.

And she sees it now in front of her, with the Girl visibly shaking like a leaf.

She halts in her step.

She doesn't know how to feel about that.

She hadn't expected the Girl to be standing in the doorway on her return. She thought her to be in the room that is hers now, the one she always hastily returns to after dinner.

Dirty hands claw into the fur of the dead animal. Blood drips onto the floor, the noise echoes off the walls.

For a moment this is the only sound in the room.

The Bride looks at the Girl and remembers the only experience with the townsfolk she ever cared to make.

Screams, pointed fingers, females hiding their young ones, males searching for arms and pitchforks. She remembers trying to speak out, wanting to ask for help, for someone to understand. She remembers not being able to. Stones had hit the skin of her body before she could open the mouth. Blood vessels broke up. Pained noises escaped her.

She had only been looking for help, not knowing where she was or where she could go, just knowing that she needed to escape the only home she had had, and she had run away as fast as she could but no matter which way she turned, the eyes of these people had all been the same. Unforgiving.

The Brides' expression hardens as she looks at the Girl.

She knows the look on her face. She knows what happens when people are afraid.

With a throw the rabbit lands in front of the Girl's feet. The noise the body makes as it hits the ground is sickening.

The sudden movement and sound leave the Girl gasping.

The Bride wants to feel smug about how she flinches, but the feeling never comes.

A faint trail of blood lies in between them now.

There's a pause where the Girl's eyes don't move from the dead animal, as if afraid it could jump at her any moment. Too scared to look up at the Bride.

So the Bride only sneers with a curtsy that she was taught a long time ago. "Dinner is served,“ she barks before she turns and leaves.

She tells herself to not look back.

*

Tonight when the Bride hesitatingly washes off the blood, she tries to tune out the memory of the unexpected turn of the evening.

The Girl's frail body that kept shaking like prey that knows what's coming next.

The look of something that knows they're cornered.

That escape isn't possible.

As if the Bride is the one casting stones this time.

She looks at the now red, muddy water in the bowl in front of her.

Pretends she can't feel her hands shaking.

Instead, she tries to feel satisfaction remembering that the rabbits blood hasn't only stained herself but also the Girls naked legs.

***16**

The Bride hears her cry at night, when haunting this place.

She got used to the crying of the Girl's father, with lots of closed doors between them him and him locked in the Basement. It had been easier.

Somehow she can't drown Her out.

***28**

The Girl is clever.

The Bride had suspected it, had seen it before but now she knows for sure.

There's something in her eyes.

*

The Bride knows the woods, she knows the animals, she knows the trees, the turns, the river.

What she doesn't know much about are the plants.

Which apparently happens to be what the Girl wants to eat.

The Bride isn't sure on that, but she doesn't know what else to think.

Because she thinks the Girl complains. Only that she never _does_ complain.

She just keeps pushing her food around on her plate, one of the few in the house, with her being the only one bothering to use them. Never uttering a word but visibly uncomfortable with what's on there.

***31**

This was new.

No hiding in the kitchen any more, no sneaking in and out of the room. The Bride hears the noises the Girl makes. She _has_ to know that the Bride will hear her, might even step into the kitchen and yet -

(The Bride hasn't seen her in a day, so she–

She knows the Girl leaves as soon as she notices her, she knows the chance that she looks at her for even a second are slim but -

She just wants to _see_ her.)

\- she visibly tenses when the Bride makes herself known.

But she keeps going on with her task.

She's washing the dishes. Dishes the Bride knew to be in the cupboards but that she never once bothered to use.

(She hasn't even bothered hiding the knives from the kitchen. The Girl had threatened to use them on her during her first escape. She never had.)

For a moment the Bride just stands there and watches.

Hardly able to believe what she's seeing. What she's allowed to see.

A smell hits her.

She smells– _something_. Something she can remember from a long time ago.

There's a pan on the stove.

***32**

The Girl never says a word but sometimes she keeps staring at her, watches her gulp down the kill of the night when she herself only pushes the meat on her plate around. The Bride feels her eyes on her, doesn't feel comfortable per se, but she's had worse.

(She's had much worse.)

The Bride gets the wordless hint that the Girl thinks she wasn't made to survive only on meat and spices that she had found in the dusty kitchen of her new home.

No, the Girl wasn't _made_ at all but if she had been, then it was for something better than this.

*

A part of the Bride, a part that she actively tries to push away, wants the Girl to starve. For her to try and go out for a hunt herself, or to finally escape once and for all, and die while trying to survive out there.

Another part, a part the Bride doesn't particularly like as well, thinks that she doesn't have to take care of the Girl but she does anyway so the Girl should be grateful for it. This part wants her to live off raw meat that she provides until the day she dies because if this is good enough for _her_ , then it's good enough for the Girl.

The rest of her, though– the rest of her knows that the Girl wasn't made.

Knows that she certainly wasn't hers to keep.

***37**

She tells herself that she didn't seek out the bushes on purpose before grabbing the first berries and fruits that she could find the next time she hunted a wild rabbit.

That she didn't go out of her way looking for mushrooms on the ground.

Tells herself that she didn't stray closer to the town than she normally does to secretly watch what the towns women picked up, what might be eatable and what they avoided.

***39**

The Bride throws her– her _gatherings_ on the small table next to where the Girl sits and reads.

She sees her flinch and tries to feel good about that.

Tries to walk away from her without glancing at her face once.

But she only manages the latter. 

She doesn't see the surprise in her face.

Doesn't see how the Girl puts her book down to take a closer look at what's in front of her.

And above all she doesn't see the small upturn of her lips, barely hidden behind her hand.

***41**

The Girl smiles at her food now.

Something like a warm feeling settles in the Bride's stomach when she sees that, something that she can't understand.

***43**

The Bride doesn't even bother to tell herself any excuse anymore when looking for food.

She knows exactly what she's doing and why.

***46**

The first time she stays during preparation of dinner (with the Girl cutting mushrooms), the Girl moves slower. As if she can't concentrate on the Bride and the task at her hands at the same time.

The Bride knows she's making her uncomfortable but seeing that the Girl doesn't hurry in her task to get away from her as quickly as possible, she hopes that it's not a bad sign.

***50**

The Bride is helping her with the dishes now, moving carefully, moving slowly. Not only to not risk startling the Girl but also to make sure that she's not touching her.

Once the Bride's hand had accidentally brushed hers, in the beginning, and the nervous gasp the Girl let out, the shaking of her body, had been enough to make sure her hands are now moving very deliberately.

The Bride knows how she looks, knows how her skin feels, so she understands. Nevermind her own heart that kept beating unbelievably fast all afternoon after accidently feeling her skin on hers.

Nevermind the something in her that twines around her stomach when she sees the Girl narrowing her eyes at her sickly coloured hands, as if trying to understand something.

*

She isn't rotting. Not really.

The skin that covers her just needs care. More so than it would need if it really were her own, if it had been her own from the very beginning.

She is covered by skin, and she would like to believe that it's hers but it isn't. She knows that it isn't.

But there are no flies constantly swarming around her. There is no flesh falling off at her movements. Nothing dramatic like that.

Not when she takes care.

The cleaning comes automatically to her at this point. Whenever the seams aren't cleaned, it smells bad. Whenever it smells bad, it's only a matter of time until the flies come. Until her skin changes colour. Remembers that it doesn't actually belongs to her.

The cleaning is a task she had long gotten used to.

It's a small price to pay for a life.

***57**

The first time the Girl hands her a wet but clean plate to dry, the Bride can't move.

The plate is big enough that their fingers wouldn't touch even if she wanted to, and she very much tells herself that she doesn't want them to, but she still takes it with only her fingertips, treating it as carefully as if it were made of the most expensive and fragile china. (It certainly could be, but the Bride doesn't know about these things either.)

The Girl's hand stays in the air for a moment too long to be natural. Her own action must have caught her by surprise as well.

The Bride can't help thinking that the Girl is better at covering it than she is, though, her hands faintly shaking while holding the towel.

***64**

The Bride knows how to clean a plate now. How to arrange the dishes on a table. How to dry something so there are no water stains left behind. Even how to cook soup.

(She was used to being told what to do, having a strict voice and hand teach her what a _Bride_ needs to know. But never in the kitchen where the staff could see.)

What she isn't used to is a soft hand arranging plate and silverware on the table and then putting it all together on a pile again, before turning around with a kind but shy face, wordlessly asking her to try it herself, like a game.

Having someone tenderly tell her "No, not this one,“ and correcting her when she nearly put in the wrong spice yet again.

She could have sworn that sometimes the Girl was smiling.

The Bride should know better than to get used to this but sometimes she can't help but dream.

***67**

Sometimes the Bride thinks that this is all part of a particularly clever plan of the Girl. Lure her into false security to run away at the best next given moment.

Sometimes she thinks she might just let her go out of thankfulness for the kind act alone. Nobody ever bothered to do such a thing before, and she can't help herself but feel glad for it, real or not.

Sometimes she thinks she might just let her go because she wouldn't be able to bear the silence, the ignorance and the coldness from her again that would certainly return should she capture her again.

Sometimes she thinks that even then she wouldn't be able to let her go.

And sometimes – sometimes she catches herself hoping that whatever this is, whatever she _has_ right now is real after all.

***74**

The estate belongs to the Bride.

It really does not, but ever since she stepped into the abandoned looking house, made it hers, nobody ever claimed otherwise.

She had lived in fear the first couple of days. Weeks.

Hid in the rooms that looked the worst, where it was the most unlikely that someone would check in first. Hopefully giving her enough time to escape should she need to.

But no one ever came.

( _Except for the Girl._ )

So slowly but surely the Bride moved rooms.

Looked through every single one, looked through every cupboard, every drawer.

Her favourite rooms were the bathroom, after she covered the mirrors, and the kitchen. Both were wide, both were warm.

Both felt the most like home to her.

*****

Her father owned a vast amount of books.

Spend his days looking through them, studying them, sorting them. Asking her to bring them to him, to learn how to be useful to him.

He had to describe the covers to her, the places where had put them, seeing that he never bothered to teach her how to read.

Sometimes her betrothed looked at her as if he considered something, as if thinking about letting her in on a secret. She had suspected that he knew how to make sense of the small letters but as much as she wanted to learn, she couldn't bear the thought of having him close to her.

Of him thinking that she needed him.

Instead, she told herself that she enjoyed looking through the few ones that had pictures whenever her father wasn't looking, and that this was enough.

*

She had only looked through the library of this estate once while going through the house for the first time. Hardly any of them had pictures.

But even if, this was no place for her.

(No one was allowed to be in here without father.)

*

It just happened that the room the Girl chose to spend most of her time in was the library.

***75**

The Bride wasn't sure what to do.

It long became clear to her that this became a more and more common thing for her when the Girl was involved. The Bride never seemed to know what to do.

Had the Girl specifically looked for a room the Bride didn't enter? As some sort of _refuge_?

She tries feeling angry about that idea but the only thing she feels is sadness. And understanding.

What would the Bride even do if she entered the room herself? Act as if she wanted to read? Downright stare at the Girl which was the only thing she actually wanted to do?

She huffs. Even to her that seems ridiculous.

***81**

After an entire day on which she doesn't see the Girl at all, the Bride ends up just barging into the library like some sort of fool.

The Girl flinched when the Bride bursts in, having though the door to be closed when it had stood slightly open, and was now banging against the wall with a loud thump. She feels even more stupid now.

After an uncomfortable second the Girl hesitatingly looks back into her book, only risking a glance at the Bride once or twice, out of the corner of her eye.

The Bride stands here like a complete imbecile for only a second longer before straightening up, acting like she had planned to come here. Like she had intended to look through a couple of books, trailing them with her finger as if looking for something. She pulls out a random one, hesitating for only a moment, before leaving the library again.

The book doesn't even have pictures.

***86**

The first time she stays in the library, she chooses another book at random and sits in the seat the farthest away from the Girl.

The Bride doesn't even open the book, too busy staring at the back of her head. The soft curls on it. The way her hand moves through it at times.

She listens to her breathing, the turning of pages. The surprised or amused noises she sometimes makes when something unexpected happened in the book.

It doesn't take long for the library to become the Bride's favourite room in the house.

***89**

If the Girl is aware of the Bride not really reading anything, if she is aware of the shy looks that she steals at her, finally given an _opportunity_ to look at her without it being too obvious, then she never shows it.

*

The Girl looks back at her sometimes.

The Bride isn't really sure what to think of that.

***99**

The first time the Girl smiles at the Bride when entering the library, the Bride immediately freezes. Then she turns around and leaves the room without a single word.

She doesn't even think to take a book with her.

Instead, she goes into the room that had long ago become her own, closes the door, leans against it and slowly slides down until she sits on the floor.

She has to stay there a long time until her heartbeat calms down.

***100**

The next time she enters the library she doesn't dare to look at the Girl's face.

She can't say if she's afraid of another smile or afraid of the lack thereof.

***103**

The Girl has a very pretty face, so the Bride's intention doesn't stay for too long.

The Girl is smiling.

This time the Bride forces herself to stay in the room. To take a book. To sit down in a seat. To act as if her heart isn't merely seconds away from giving out.

All very mechanically, all very stiffly but progress, nevertheless.

***109**

The Bride finally manages a nod in answer to the smile.

***111**

She becomes quite good at nodding with the Girl smiling at her more often during dinner as well.

***113**

The Bride spends a long time in the bathroom today. Not out of necessity, not because she needs to clean her skin or fix her seams, having already done this the day before.

Instead, she stands in front of the covered mirror.

She takes a deep breath before only lifting a corner of the old tapestry she had put over it a long time ago, and she _looks_.

At her face.

At herself trying out a smile.

*

She doesn't go to the library today.

*

She also doesn't join the Girl during dinner.

***115**

"Hello,“ the Girl greets her when she enters the kitchen.

The Bride is sure she's experiencing a heart attack. A stroke. A hallucination. That somehow her father had messed up something in her brain after all.

But there the Girl is. Flour on her face and hands, an old apron wrapped around her. Head turned around to smile at her like she had been waiting for her all along.

When the Girl turns back around, she asks her to put whatever she had made into the oven and the Bride reacts without thinking twice about it.

*

Eats it with her, without thinking twice about it.

***119**

Of course, it doesn't last. Nothing ever does.

*****

It starts well enough.

The Bride returns with a deer.

Ever since the first and very unpleasant time she brought back a kill, she puts them into the barn now, bringing only a piece at a time with her in the kitchen.

No blood trails, no throwing around dead bodies. She understands why the Girl might prefer it that way.

The Bride feels _good_.

The hunt made her feel as free as it always did. And deer is something the Girl enjoyed eating. It was well worth the tussle with the big animal, seeing that it would also provide them with enough meat for the entire month.

Her mood improves even more when she smells something good and spicy even before entering the kitchen. Before coming _home_.

She even dares to hope for a smile, for the Girl to greet her like she often did nowadays, maybe even a friendly word like she tends to when she's bringing her something she likes.

What she doesn't expect is for the Girl to turn around with a smile before dropping her cooking spoon and covering her mouth, suddenly crying out loudly.

The Bride is taken aback, looking down at the meat in her hands, searching for what caused that reaction.

The meat was as clean as she could have managed, and sure, she is more or less covered in blood, her dress stained as it always is, but only then she notices her arm.

How the seams are more or less only hanging by a thread, her flesh barely kept together. It doesn't even hurt and yet, when the Bride looks up and sees the Girl's fearful expression, she feels pain. The Girl has sunken to the ground, tries to speak but is too busy trying to control the shaking of her body. 

The meat falls out of the Brides hands and even though she hears the Girl call after her, she turns around and runs.

*

She feels ashamed of the tears streaming down her face because what did she expect?

To be able to act like a normal human being? For the Girl to see her as one? Both were impossible and yet- yet she had been stupid enough to play along.

*

She runs into the woods because there is no other place for her to go.

She can't bare to be in Her presence any longer. She lets out a sob when she realizes that the Girl must feel exactly the same.

She knows that she needs to fix her arm. Needs to clean the stump, sew everything up neatly again, and she needs to be in the estate for that, all her materials were in her bathroom, but she just can't stop running.

So instead, she holds on to her arm and keeps going.

*

She doesn't know for how long.

***123**

The Girl is gone.

The Bride returns, her face swollen from crying, her skin not used to it, and from branches of trees that had carved into her skin. She's dirtier than ever, smells just as bad as she feels.

She tells herself that only worry for her arm had brought her back.

It looks– unhealthy. Which implies that there was a time in which she looks healthy, which is a joke in itself, but now the colour is slowly changing to a darker green, as if the flesh realized anew that it wasn't hers. It isn't actually rotting, but the Bride thinks it's coming close to it. It itches.

She enters the estate, telling herself to not bother looking for the Girl, no matter how much she longs to see her. The expression she had worn the last time that the Bride had seen her is still too clear in her mind.

But even if it weren't for the horrifying sight that the Bride had offered to her, she'd be a fool not to use her chance to escape this place.

The Bride had never been gone for this long, it would have given the Girl enough time to make it to the town, even without a clear idea of where she's heading, if she didn't rest along the way.

A tired smile finds it's way onto the Bride's face.

The Girl was too clever not to use this chance.

*

And really, on her way to her room she passes the kitchen and sees the mess of her kill still lie on the ground, seemingly untouched. Now probably not better smelling than her.

The door to the library stands open, but there is no light and no Girl sitting inside. The same goes for the other rooms.

The Bride is too tired to feel anything but empty.

(She had escaped her family, her father, her _captor_ , feeling free for the very first time in her life.

Who was she to deny the Girl the very same?)

*

She draws herself a bath, used to handling herself with only one arm. She's had a lot worse, and yet she can't remember a time she felt this awful.

She slips out of what had once been a dress and sinks into the water. She needs to rest, needs to not think, to not feel, and she decides that whatever is left of her arm needs to wait.

*

She has no idea how long she stayed in there but the water had long gone cold. Not that she really felt the warmth of it before.

She's startled out of her state when she hears a noise.

Hears a door being opened, being closed. Foot steps. Hurried ones.

She knows that she should move, jump out of the water, do _anything_ , but she can't.

The Girl must have arrived at home.

The Bride closed her eyes.

Her _real_ home.

Alerted her father, maybe a _betrothed_ , anyone she could find to come back and get rid of the inhuman freak, the monster, that kept her hidden away from the world.

She slowly sinks deeper into the water. She can't find it in herself to argue against that.

After all, the Girl is right.

*

When she next opens her eyes, it's because she hears someone talk to her. Someone touches her, tries to drag her unmoving body out of the tub.

Reflexively she pushes them away, remembers distantly that she can't let anyone touch her, and she weakly tries claw her way free until she falls down onto the hard and now wet floor. She's breathing heavily, already worn out, already feeling her strength leave her.

She looks up and finds herself looking straight at the Girl.

A now dishevelled, panicked looking Girl.

It makes no sense to the Bride, she tries to say as much but she can hardly think. She wants to say _something_ , ask her where the others are, what she's doing her but no words are coming out.

Nothing of this makes sense, even less for the Girl, scared looking as she is, to make a move to reach out to her. The Bride shrinks back at that, more out of habit than anything else, barely muffling a cry when she accidentally moves her dying arm.

She doesn't understand.

"Hold still,“ the Girl says, as one would to a wounded animal, afraid of it lashing out.

The Bride never thought her to be spiteful, but she wishes she'd just finally stop this, whatever game she's playing with her. Even the Bride, as monstrous as she must be, goes in for the kill instead of torturing an already dying animal.

"Hold still;“ the Girl repeats, calmer now and the Bride hates that it actually works on her. The Girl reaches for her once more and the Bride can only let it happen. It seemed like a cruel joke to her that the Girl would finally grant her wish, would touch her out of her own free will, only to-

"Just do it,“ the Bride mumbles, feeling weaker by the second. Too tired to fight. And she doesn't want to fight _Her_.

Attack me, kill me, just do it. Do the worst you can do- "Leave me,“ she gets out before she loses consciousness.

Stay, she thinks.

***125**

She _does_.

The Bride doesn't clearly remember what happened afterwards. What really happened and what must have been wishful thinking.

She remembers soft hands on her. Hands she dreamed about, hands she sometimes imagined on her late at night when lying in bed. Hands she knows by heart by how often and how long she looked at them. Watched them turn pages, clean the dishes, clean the meat she brought back. Hands that she could draw with her eyes closed.

Hands that were now cleaning her cuts, tending to her bruises, her stump where her arm was only barely still hanging on. She remembers someone pulling out the old threads that kept it attached, brushing through her wild hair when she's letting out a pained groan at that. Carefully sewing it her flesh back together, putting _her_ back together.

Speaking to her, telling her that they had been looking everywhere for them, that they had wandered through the forest for hours. How they were afraid _for_ her when seeing her arm, not _of_ her or her body or what she was.

*

She distantly remembers having always dreamed of someone uttering these words to her.

***132**

"Do you like this dress?,“ the Girl suddenly asks her, looking at her as if she was considering something. As if she had been looking at her for a while now and the Bride had only noticed now.

She looks down on – on whatever was left of her wedding gown.

The only dress she has, the one she was given, the one that she made hers.

She looks back at the Girl, not sure of what to reply.

"You only ever wear this one when there are so many more in the castle.“

The Bride knows that there are. She had looked through the closets.

But none of them fit. They were made for ladies and nobles. None of them were _hers_.

"I could make you one,“ the Girl says after a minute of silence. She made it sound like a question and looked hesitant, as if not sure if she just stepped on dangerous territory. The Bride had never worn anything else, not in all the time she had spent with her.

The Bride just looks back at her, not knowing what to say. But the Girl doesn't wait for an answer to her offer. She smiles, she nods and then looks back into her book, as if the question didn't was hardly anything special, wasn't making the Bride feel dizzy.

Instead of saying anything else, the Bride looks at her slightly dirty nails, her hands on her very dirty dress.

*

Whenever she does clean herself after slicing the meat of her latest kill (she had known the deer would provide enough meat for them for at least a month), leaving the barn with her hands dirty and her dress even more, there is now a soft knock on her door.

The Girl will be lingering there, kind face, kind hands, kind words. Will personally make sure the Bride takes care as if she wasn't able to do it herself. As if she hadn't done so herself, without help, all this time.

She will sit down next to her, check the temperature of the water, frown almost every single time seeing that the Bride hardly ever heats it beforehand, and then take her hands in hers, softly washing off what the Bride didn't already remove herself.

More often than not the Girl showed up even when the Bride didn't manage to get herself dirty.

At first the Bride insisted on being more than able to do this on her own.

Quietly.

Once.

*

Turns out the Girl is stubborn too.

*

Turns out being cared for is– something that the Bride has to get used to.

*

Turns out that she doesn't mind.

***139**

The Bride isn't sure what to say.

There is a dress lying on her bed, a dress that somehow looks painfully familiar to her and yet like none that she has ever seen before. (Not that she hast seen all that many.)

Only when she puts it on, with it fitting uncannily well, and looks down on herself, she realises where she's seen this pattern before. It's the same as of the curtains of the library. A dark heavy red. Combined with fabric from a dress left behind in one of the main bedrooms, a red one of a similar shade.

The Bride doesn't dare to uncover a mirror to look at herself, but she carefully keeps touching the fabric and looks down on herself. She's wearing a dress made _for_ her, _with_ _her_ in mind, and she thinks her heart is beating as fast as if she just came back from a hunt.

*

The red cheeks and the smile of the Girl seeing her wearing it for the first time nearly makes her heart stop.

She can't remember ever feeling that light-headed.

***144**

The Girl doesn't ask to go home to see her father again, to check on his health, to make sure he knows she's alive and fed. She just tells her that she's going to and how much easier it'd be to find her way to the town and back if the Bride came along.

The Bride feels fear clutch at her heart, until she realizes that the Girl actually said _"and back"_ .

She nods before she even processes it.

***149**

"What?“ the Girl asks, sounding honestly curious.

The Bride keeps staring at the her as if she had grown a second head. The Girl looks back just the same.

After a pause the Bride silently shakes her head, still not able to believe that she had actually brought her as close to the town as she had dared to go.

She also can't believe that before the Girl leaves she had grasped her hand and squeezed it once.

The Bride stands there for another minute, watching her leave, keeping herself from going after her, from pulling her back, back _home_. She's pushing her nails into the palm of her hands, before finally settling on hiding herself and keeping an eye out for the town folk.

Waiting for the Girl.

If- _Until_ she comes back.

*

She does.

Looking happier than ever, her cheeks red, her teeth white, her hands cold.

Softly stroking over the Bride's cheek, not to warm herself (not that it would do her any god) but as if to–

The Bride only starts to breath again once the Girl begins to walk ahead. Cheekily turning around to smile at her every now and then.

Her own fingers sweep over her cheek, over the place where the girl had just put her hand, without touching it.

It still feels warm.

***156**

The Bride looks at the Girl sitting next to her, engrossed in a book.

Not for the first time, the Bride wishes she could read so that she could better understand what the Girl seems so fascinated by.

Yet if the Bride was able to read herself, maybe the Girl would stop reading to her as she sometimes does now.

The Bride looks at her and the Girl knows, she can tell by the way the corner of her mouth twitches, still looking down at the book.

Stealing looks right back at her.

Stay, she thinks.

"Stay,“ she says.

The Girl looks up from the pages. Her face going from surprised to serious in a matter of moments, and then she looks at her for a very long moment.

Then at the rose the Bride gave to her the morning before, neatly put into a small and vase, right at the window where ever since the curtain found a new purpose, there's a lot more sun light reaching the room.

And then the Girl smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> If you made it til here I can only hope this you found something that you enjoyed in this. I definitely enjoyed writing it even though it took me nearly two years to write it out.  
> I'd love to hear your opinion about this, what you liked, what worked for you and what didn't. I tried out a couple of new things and I'm still a bit nervous about them so if you can spare some time to let me hear your thoughts, please feel free! Thanks again for reading! <3


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